Tuesday, August 12, 2014

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Tiffany
ran her French-manicured fingernails across his hairy, salt-and-pepper
chest. Finally, she spoke. “You scared me. More than usual.”

He didn’t reply. This tryst had been especially rough. He turned his head toward her, licked her shoulder, then bit it.

Tiffany
winced, her body hardened like petrified wood. A desperate, tormented
scream pressed against her rigid lips. It took every ounce of internal
fortitude to keep the pain within. She clenched her teeth so hard her
jaw nearly trembled, attempting to shift pain away from the lesion,
where mangled flesh dangled off her shoulder.

Tiffany’s
choppy, sputtering gasps nearly matched the pace of her machine-gun
pulse. Her hand was clammy from the shot of adrenaline, but she calmly
moved it to rest on her hip without drawing further attention. Finally, a
deeper breath.

The
two of them lay totally naked on the industrial carpet, a splinter of
light from the window now slicing the middle of his body, starting at
his groin. Their bodies were pasted together with dried sweat, blood
adding to the toxic mix, the latest wound possibly the deepest.

A
mixture of scents invaded her faculties: a combination of sour,
repugnant body odor and copper, old-fashioned aftershave, and the smell
of sex. She held her breath for a second, but the repulsive stench hung
in the still air. It made her want to vomit. But she was used to
suppressing her bile, and every human emotion around this living,
breathing creature.

The
man’s enormous chest lifted, reminding Tiffany that while he wore a
mortal façade, he used physical intimidation to get whatever he wanted,
whenever he desired. A brief clip from the past shot through her frontal
lobe—his calloused hand gripping her neck like it was a pencil, his
throaty, putrid, breath spewing threats. She nearly gagged at the
thought and quickly attempted to think of happier times—frolicking in
the park with her dear mother, tossing a ball around with a childhood
neighbor, sharing ice cream with friends at the end of a hot summer day.

But her tortured, brainwashed mind couldn’t break free from the endless loop, replaying the last fifteen minutes.

A
single tear escaped and slid down her cheek, hung for a second, then
dropped in the open wound on her shoulder. It stung and she chewed the
inside of her cheek.

They’d
left their marks on each other, like wild animals marking their
territories. But they both knew the agreement—nothing visible to the
public eye.

Behind
the façade of every corporate takeover executives pull levers this way
and that, squeezing the last profitable nickel out of the deal. But no
one knows the true intent of every so-called merger. No one knows the secret bonds that exist. An Indian technology giant swallows
up another private company that has deep roots in North Texas. For one
unassuming man the thought of layoffs, of losing his own job to a bunch
of arrogant assholes feels like a kick to the jewels. Until the day Michael’s life changes forever. Perverse alliances. An affair of the
heart. A grisly murder. A spiraling string of events thrusts Michael
into a life-or-death fight to save a tortured soul and hunt down a
brutal killer…one who lurks closer than he ever imagined. Greed knows no boundaries.